


Twenty-Five

by Josselin, Mishima



Series: Traditions [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5997051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mishima/pseuds/Mishima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lazar swallowed. “You want me to spank you twenty-five times in the courtyard in front of all of your friends, for your birthday.”</p><p>“Spank!” said Pallas excitedly. “Yes, that is the word, yes.”</p><p>Lazar fucking loved Akielon traditions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-Five

Pallas had a really great ass. Lazar considered himself something of a connoisseur of the ass, and Pallas’s was a delicacy. It was round, firmly muscled, and when Pallas flexed, he had ass dimples.

The cheeks of his ass were hairless and smooth, and there was a trail of very fine hair going down his crack. Overall, it was a perfect ass. One of the finest Lazar had ever seen, or kissed, or fucked. 

His ass led down to his thighs, which were lightly haired and muscled. Lazar was not a man inclined toward poetry, but he sometimes thought that if he were, he would write one about Pallas’s thighs. 

Lazar could still remember the first glimpse he had caught of Pallas’s bottom, courtesy of the fact that Akielon men liked to wear skirts, and sometimes when they bent over, you could catch an eyeful. Lazar may or may not have dropped several different items in Pallas’s vicinity to induce this circumstance. 

Then, when Pallas had taken to the ring, Lazar got the view he’d been hoping for since the first time he laid his eyes on Pallas. Lazar was not expecting it. Pallas, naked as the day he was born, covered in oil, his buttocks shining with the oil that Akielon men liked to spread all over themselves.

Lazar had been close to finding Pallas after the match and offering to help him oil himself up again, but after the debacle of the okton, Pallas had slunk off to nurse his shame amidst the celebration of the kings, and Lazar had just poured him a drink and waited for a more promising moment. 

He’d thought about it, though. He’d been haunted by the image of Pallas spreading oil over himself and then kneeling in front of the king. He’d used both of his hands to oil himself, his palms cupping scoopfuls of the oil and his fingers smoothing it over his skin, massaging it into the muscle. 

They should play with the oil again, Lazar thought. That was a really fucking excellent idea.

Perfect ass aside, Pallas was acting weird, though.

He had been quiet, the last few days. He turned sometimes to Lazar like he was going to say something, and then he didn’t speak, with the way he sometimes had when he knew what he wanted to say but didn’t know the words to say it in Veretian and didn’t think that Lazar would understand him in Akielon. He had brought up his upcoming twenty-fifth birthday at least three times, which was strange, because he’d let his twenty-fourth birthday pass without comment until Lydos had toasted him at dinner.

“Speak up,” Lazar said when he’d had enough of Pallas's weird mood.

Pallas blushed, ducked his head, and looked at Lazar through his lashes. “There’s a tradition, in Akielos,” said Pallas. He didn't say it like the Veretians did, _Achelos_.

“Yes,” said Lazar. The Akielons had lots of great traditions, like oil wrestling naked in public. Lazar had a feeling he was going to like this one just as much.

Pallas continued gamely. “When a soldier turns twenty-five,” he said. “He asks one of his fellow soldiers to do him a favor.”

“What’s that?” said Lazar.

“To, um,” said Pallas. “I don’t know your word for it.”

Lazar made a ‘go-on’ motion with his hand.

“The men gather in the courtyard,” said Pallas. “In a circle. And the man who he asks for a favor sits in the middle of the circle. On...a chair.”

Lazar nodded encouragingly. 

“And the man whose birthday it is, he goes over his thighs.” Pallas tried to gesture to show the position, and then abandoned that and crawled over Lazar’s lap in illustration.

“Okay,” said Lazar. This seemed good so far.

“And then,” Pallas continued, looking up over his shoulder from where he was still posed over Lazar’s lap. “The friend who he asks for a favor?” said Pallas. “He. Um. Hits him? Twenty-five times.”

“Hits him,” said Lazar.

Pallas nodded. “In a friendly way? Among men? On the bottom.”

Lazar swallowed. “You want me to spank you twenty-five times in the courtyard in front of all of your friends, for your birthday.”

“Spank!” said Pallas excitedly. “Yes, that is the word, yes.”

Lazar fucking loved Akielon traditions.

He pretended to consider the question. “Well,” he said, running a hand over Pallas’s ass, because it was _right there_ , on his lap. “That sounds like a pretty big favor.”

Pallas wriggled a bit. 

“I wouldn’t want to do anything to mess it up,” said Lazar. He pulled Pallas’s chiton up toward his waist and ran his hand over Pallas’s ass again, over the bare skin this time.

“I suppose I could,” he said, slowly. “But probably we should practice first.”

Pallas smiled at Lazar’s agreement. He had dimples on his face, too. “Practice!”

“A few times,” Lazar suggested. “To make sure I can get it right.” Pallas laughed warmly. “In fact,” Lazar continued, “Since you are already in the correct position--”

Pallas grinned. “Yes,” he agreed, and Lazar could feel Pallas’s erection rubbing against his leg.

“Thirty-five times, you said?” said Lazar.

“Twenty-five,” Pallas corrected.

“Count them,” said Lazar, and he began.

The first slap landed with a pleasant sounding smack; Lazar smiled, in the courtyard it would probably echo. He made the first few strokes soft, interspersed with caresses of Pallas’s skin, feeling out the pace and the strength, anticipating how it would sting his hand when he hit harder.

“Not so tender,” Pallas said.

“Oh, I’ll leave you feeling tender,” said Lazar.

“I am not a palace slave,” said Pallas. “Harder!”

“You’re full of criticisms about my technique,” said Lazar. “I guess we’ll have to practice more,” he said. And then he made the next stroke significantly harder.

Pallas flexed in response, shouting briefly. Lazar liked that, and he waited a longer moment, and then he did it again.

“Besides, you didn't count the last one. I’ll have to start again.’’

“What!” said Pallas, laughing. His laughter changed into a shout as Lazar hit him again.

“You’re still not counting,” Lazar said.

“One,” said Pallas, and they started again. 

Pallas was terrible at keeping track. They had a lot of practice that night. 

The king wanted to go riding the following day, and Pallas settled into his saddle with his bottom lip between his teeth. Lazar watched.

They ate dinner after the ride around one of the low tables that the Akielons favored, the diners seated on brightly colored cushions. Lazar offered Pallas a second cushion, and Pallas widened his eyes, and punched Lazar on the shoulder, but he took the second cushion.

After they ate, Damen turned to Pallas. Pallas still lowered his eyes when Damen looked at him, and sometimes looked like he desperately wanted to throw himself down on the floor, but he was getting better at accepting Damen’s friendly overtures. 

“Lydos said it’s your birthday next week?” 

Pallas nodded. “Yes, exalted.”

“Twenty five?” said Damen.

Pallas nodded again. 

Nikandros laughed. “Have you made your selection yet?”

Pallas grinned, and tilted his head toward Lazar seated next to him. The laughter was raucous and good natured. 

“I’ll have to do some extra training,” Lazar said, to let the Akielons know that he was in on the joke.

The Veretian king was not in on the joke. Laurent sat in a relaxed posture, a small smile on his face. “Training for what?” 

Laurent’s gaze traveled over all of the men, waiting for someone to let him in on the joke. Lazar smirked. Pallas dropped his gaze. Nikandros took another drink from his goblet, and Laurent’s eyes landed on Damen.

Damen looked back; his gaze was fond. “There’s a tradition,” said Damen. “On a soldier’s twenty-fifth birthday, he gets spanked.”

Laurent’s problem did not seem to be unfamiliarity with the word. “Why?”

Why did Akielons wrestle naked covered in oil? Hadn’t Laurent learned better than to question these things?

Damen shrugged. “It is supposed to wish him good luck.”

“Only if he gets hit hard enough,” said Nikandros. “The harder, the better the luck.”

Damen rolled his eyes. “Well, I didn’t have any problem with that.”

“Did you--” said Laurent, looking at Damen.

Damen nodded. “Yes, Nikandros did it.”

Lydos raised a glass in a toast. “I remember the king’s birthday.”

“Were you all there?” said Laurent.

All of the Akielons nodded. “I think the entire guard was there,” said Nikandros. “I have never seen the courtyard that packed.” 

Damen laughed good-naturedly.

Damen turned his head toward Laurent. “You turn twenty-five soon. Care to adopt an Akielon tradition?”

Laurent pushed his tongue into his cheek, and then he took a drink from his goblet. He had to be aware that all of the eyes in the room were widened slightly and focused on him, but he bore the attention easily, and his eyes were focused evenly on Damen. _Ask me that again,_ they dared Damen. 

Half of Laurent’s guard had been hot to fuck him. Speculating on his features, his probable nature in bed, and how nice it would be to have Laurent whimpering beneath them after having him curse them out all day on the field had been a popular licentious pastime.

Laurent’s ass wasn’t as good as Pallas’s, though. And the only man who hadn’t indulged in that kind of speculation was Damen, which was possibly how he managed to get a leg over the king. 

Lazar did his king a favor, and provided a distraction. 

“Do you have any tips for me, Nikandros?” Lazar spoke lazily, prompting another round of raucous laughter.

In the following six days leading up to Pallas’s birthday, they became so focused on _practicing_ that Lazar almost forgot the goal that they were practicing for. On Pallas’s actual birthday the men filed into the courtyard in the afternoon. One of the squires set out a low chair. Another set out a small table and a bowl of powder. Pallas was good-naturedly pushed to the center of the circle with Lazar. 

Pallas wasn’t generally one to show affection in public, waiting until the two of them were alone. But he reached out now and touched Lazar’s face gently, the gesture full of warmth. Lazar smiled at him, sincerely.

Then Lazar changed it to a smirk, sat down on the low chair, signaled Pallas to come forward, and tapped his own thigh suggestively. 

Pallas lowered himself gracefully, showing his aristocratic blood. A murmur of approval went through the crowd, the men laughing easily. Lazar gestured as though he were warming up his stroke, stopping his hand before it touched Pallas, and the men laughed again. Pallas was craning his neck to look up at him.

Lazar occupied himself with flipping Pallas’s leather skirt up at his waist. Pallas’s skin betrayed the memory of their practice session from the night before, which had been--enthusiastic. 

Lazar let himself look around the courtyard before he started, taking in his friends, the other men in Laurent’s guard who were curious about this strange Akielon tradition, Pallas’s fellow soldiers. Even Damen was there, standing in the circle next to Nikandros and smiling. Lazar caught Damen glancing up, and he followed Damen’s gaze for a moment up to the top of the battlements, where Lazar could make out a figure of a man with fair hair watching the courtyard. 

Lazar bent down over Pallas’s body, bringing his mouth close to Pallas’s ear. “Count for me,” he said.

“Get on with it,” Pallas shouted, which caused Lazar to laugh, and the assembled men to laugh along with him. 

Lazar started. The slap did echo across the cobblestones of the courtyard, and Lazar could feel the nerve endings of his hand coming alive. Apparently part of the tradition was that all of the men would count, and the echo was drowned out. “One.”

Pallas was laughing, Lazar could feel the shaking of his body in his lap. Lazar gave a second stroke, and by the third, Pallas gave a little shout instead of a laugh. Pallas was turned on. Lazar was too. He could feel Pallas’s erection against his thigh; it was probably visible to some of the men with the right angle in the circle. 

Around stroke fifteen, one of the men in the circle shouted, “Harder!” in Akielon, prompting another round of laughter, and Lazar obliged. 

“Where’s Paschal?” Damen said, in the circle. “He’s going to need a salve.”

Lazar finished amongst the good-natured laughter. Pallas slid off of his lap and stood up gingerly to be greeted eagerly by his friends. There was a lot of typical soldierly back-slapping, some ass-slapping that caused Pallas to squawk, and a fair amount of good-natured groping as Pallas managed to pull his leather skirt back into place. 

Nikandros handed Lazar a drink; Lydos had one for Pallas, who had already downed it with a whoop. Damen gave Lazar a jar of Paschal’s salve with a wink before he left the courtyard by the stairs up to the battlements. Lazar slipped the salve in his pocket and watched the Akielon king leave, and then his attention was drawn back to the courtyard, because Pallas touched his forearm gently in that shy way he had that meant he wanted to go fuck, and Lazar’s eyes rested on Pallas’s leather-covered ass as they retreated back to his room in the barracks. 

Pallas only waited until the door was closed behind them before he was pressing Lazar back against the door, curling into his body and pressing their mouths together. “I want you to fuck me,” said Pallas, looking at Lazar through his lashes with a faint blush on his face. “I want to feel it.”

“Get on the bed,” said Lazar, starting to shed his own clothes. Pallas just untied his skirt and let it drop down to the floor, and then he was scrambling eagerly on to the bed.

Lazar climbed on to the bed behind him, settling on his knees in between Pallas’s spread legs and pulling Pallas into a position balanced on his knees and forearms. 

Lazar ran his hands over his ass again. The skin was warm, and pink from where he had slapped it. He paused for a moment over a handprint on Pallas’s upper thigh, fitting his fingers over the marks. 

Then he moved his hands back to Pallas’s cheeks, and spread them gently to look at Pallas’s hole. 

“Yes,” Pallas said desperately, already sounding ready to beg. He begged very prettily, Lazar knew.

Lazar tested his hole with the tip of one finger, feeling it twitch, and then he leaned in with his mouth. 

Pallas begged.

Lazar licked around the rim, and then used his fingers to spread the hole slightly and applied his tongue inside. Pallas squirmed in front of him, nonsense words spilling out of his mouth. 

Lazar knew that Pallas liked his stubble, so he rubbed his cheek against one of Pallas’s cheeks, watching the skin redden for a slightly different reason, and listened to Pallas’s vocal appreciation. 

“Fuck me,” said Pallas.

“Where is that salve?” said Lazar, sticking a hand into the pocket of the clothing he’d dropped on the floor. 

“I don’t care about a salve,” said Pallas, half sitting up and looking back over his shoulder. “I like it.”

Lazar found the salve, and pushed Pallas back down with a hand on his shoulder. “Let me put it on you,” he said.

“I like--” said Pallas.

Lazar interrupted him with a noise. “So we can do it again tomorrow,” he said, and Pallas trailed off with a whimper.

Lazar smoothed the salve over the reddened skin of his cheeks and thighs, and then covered a fingertip with a bit of the extra, and applied that around the edges of Pallas’s winking hole. 

Pallas began to beg again. “Fuck me, please, please, Lazar, please.” And he had been so good for his birthday, it would have been a crime to deny him anything.

 

The king wanted to go riding again the next day. Damen showed up with his horse just as Pallas was mounting. 

“Good birthday?” said Damen warmly, and Pallas blushed, looked down, and took several moments to seat himself gently in the saddle.

Laurent was watching Pallas from his own horse with an expression that Lazar had never really seen on his face before. 

“I’m available next week,” said Lazar, and Laurent swung his head to the right to look at him. “You know, if you’re thinking of embracing an Akielon tradition.”

And then he laughed, and signaled his horse and moved out of the courtyard before Laurent could eviscerate him for the comment.


End file.
